Bulahdelah Bypass – Bulahdelah Upgrade – The Roads & Maritime Services (RMS, RTA) Pacific Highway 'upgrade', Bulahdelah section, is NOT a Bypass! It is NOT an upgrade! It is Extremely Dangerous!

From the Australian Government’s Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government website (accessed September, 2009) [added statements are in square brackets]:-

Pacific Highway – Bulahdelah Bypass [a gross misnomer][Note: A bypass is: ‘a road enabling motorists to avoid towns and any other heavy traffic points or any obstruction to easy travel on a main road’ (ref: the Macquarie Dictionary). With the speed limit – for all traffic – lowering to 100 km per hour at the crest of the Option E hill and the slowing of both northbound and southbound laden trucks – by approximately 25 to *30 km per hour and 20 km per hour over a distance of 900 metres and 1 km respectively – Option E is no bypass!]

Estimated Project Cost: $379,000,000[In July, 2000, the estimated cost of Option E (now fraudulently termed the Bulahdelah Bypass) was $149 million (one hundred and forty nine million dollars) and the estimated cost of the geotechnically easier Option A was $145 million (one hundred and forty five million dollars). (Ref: RTA, PPK Newsletter 2.)]

Project Description
This project will provide a full bypass of Bulahdelah [note: not a bypass at all, let alone a ‘full’ bypass] including a new crossing over the Myall River [in the floodplain downstream of the confluence of the Myall and Crawford Rivers – where a fill area has been continuously sinking for well over 12 months].

The proposed Bulahdelah Bypass [not a bypass] project comprises a new 8.5km four-lane divided highway bypass [not a bypass] … [more propaganda] from about 1.5km south of Booral Road [note: the 1.5 stretch of new highway south of Booral Road – **and its cost** – could be equally utilised for Option A – i.e. 1.5 km of Option A has already been partially constructed].

Planning approval for the project [planning approval was actually of RTA propaganda] was obtained on 9 July 2007. The scope of the project includes:

• M-class (motorway) standard, 110 km/h speed limit [note: not motorway standard and not 110 km per hour speed limit. 100 km per hour speed limit at hill crest, an approximately 25 to 30 km per hour slowing of northbound laden trucks over a distance of 900 metres, an approximately 20 km per hour slowing of southbound laden trucks over a distance of 1 kilometre, no climbing lane for northbound laden trucks, no climbing lane for southbound laden trucks, insufficiently wide median strip fails to cater for future climbing lanes together with the two future lanes necessitated by increases in traffic volume] with grade-seperated [sic] interchanges;

• two lanes in each direction allowing for the future addition of a third lane in each direction [note: as above – median strip is of insufficient width to allow for said lanes plus climbing lanes];

• access to the existing Pacific Highway and the township via two grade-seperated [sic] interchanges [the northern one of which would be located within the northern area of the township, next to a caravan park and would entail blasting during construction]. [From Bulahdelah Upgrade of The [sic] Pacific Highway Submissions (in response to the EIS) Report – Part 1 page 23, 2.4.8 Construction Noise and Vibration: ‘Blasting would be used to remove material in … and as part of the construction of the northern interchange. The vibration levels produced would largely depend on the charge used and details such as stemming, depth and type of detonating cord’.]

• new twin bridges over the [subsiding floodplain area of the] Myall River; and

• separation of local and through traffic by use of the existing highway [note: as an access road] with some diversion for local traffic [note: the residential street where the hospital and nursing home are located, Crawford Street, would also be utilised as a highway access road].

Benefits [paragraphs added]
The Pacific Highway is part of the National Land Transport Network between Sydney and Brisbane and is a major corridor for freight, business and tourism travel. [But the RTA intends to spend over to well over $300 million (three hundred million dollars) of Australian Government funding in constructing an anti-freight, anti-business bottleneck through the only tourism venue within Bulahdelah.]

Currently the highway passes through Bulahdelah and divides the town. There is substantial conflict between local and through traffic with high levels of congestion at holiday times. [Note: Option E would bottleneck.]

This section of the Pacific Highway has experienced substantial growth in traffic volumes in recent years and has an unsatisfactory safety record. [Note: the RTA’s own records show Option E to be extremely dangerous (ref: the Bulahdelah Upgrading the Pacific Highway Environmental Impact Statement); the RTA’s own records show that, based on traffic flow alone, Option A is the safest route for road users (ref: the Value Management Workshop Report).]

This project will improve road safety [note: the RTA’s own documentation shows Option E to be extremely dangerous], reduce travel times and operating costs for road users [note: the RTA’s own documentation shows that, due to speed limitations and lack of climbing lanes, Option E fails to reduce travel times and operating costs] and reduce highway maintenance costs.

Bulahdelah Bypass [not a bypass] will [not] improve safety and amenity for the Bulahdelah community. [Note: from the RTA document Bulahdelah Upgrading the Pacific Highway Environmental Impact Statement – Main Volume 8.2.5. Design, Engineering and Constructability – There are risks to drivers on the proposed Upgrade, and to residents of Bulahdelah associated with boulders falling from the cliffs and slopes upslope from the proposed Upgrade; the destruction of the only tourism attraction and cultural and heritage area within Bulahdelah does not ‘improve amenity’.]

(29-10-2009)

In 2009, as at 1st November of that year, there were no fatal crashes on the Pacific Highway, Bulahdelah. [Road crash statistics source: the Sun-Herald 1-11-2009]

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Note added 10-12-2011: Completion of the dangerous Bulahdelah Bypass Option E is not due until August, 2013 – weather permitting. The first fatality has occurred during construction.

At approximately 3.00 p.m.on Sunday, 27th November, 2011, a Nissan sedan and a semi-trailer collided head-on on the Pacific Highway immediately north of Bulahdelah.

The driver of the sedan died at the scene.

This is a photograph of the approximate area of today’s collision. It’s a dangerous S-bend deliberately made by the RTA (now RMS, Roads & Maritime Services) and their contractor, Baulderstone Pty Ltd.

It’s been reported that when on[/approaching] this section of the S-bend it can appear that southbound vehicles are travelling in the northbound lane.

This is the first (publicly known) major accident to occur because RMS (then RTA) KNOWINGLY and DELIBERATELY chose the dangerous Option E route instead of the cheaper and safer (refer Value Management Workshop Report) western Option A (or variation).

RMS and ALL MPs and others who pushed for thedangerous Option E route contributed to this tragedy.